The Fight to Preserve Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Laboratory Marianne Macy Excerpt from Margaret Cheney’s Tesla: Man Out of Time (Barnes and Noble Books, 1981, pp. 173-175) The world system for broadcasting—a concept designed to incorporate almost every aspect of modern communications—was all over but the mourning. Yet as long as the tower stood, Tesla continued his efforts to complete it. Exactly when all the workers left, no one could say. Thomas R. Bayles, the general passenger agent of the railroad station just across the road from the abandoned plant, only noticed that passengers had stopped getting off there. A caretaker remained on duty for a time. When curious journalists or research engineers showed up they were allowed to climb to the tower top with the sweeping view of Long Island Sound. For all that the tower looked so light, it was built entirely without metal, even down to the wooden pegs holding together the wooden uprights and cross members. After abandoning the plan for covering the dome with a copper sheathing, Tesla had installed a removable disk through which a beam of radiation could be projected to the zenith. The visitors found the laboratory filled with curiously complex apparatus. In addition to much glass-blowing equipment there were a complex machine shop with eight lathes, X-ray devices, a great variety of high-frequency Tesla coils, one of his original radio-controlled robot boats and exhibit cases filled with thousands of bulbs and tubes. There were an office, library, instrument room, electrical generators and transformers, and great stocks of wire and cable. But after the watchmen left, vandals entered, broke things, ransacked files, emptied papers on the floor and trampled them. “It is not too much to say,” wrote a Brooklyn Eagle reporter, “that the place has often been viewed in the same light as the people of a few centuries ago viewed the dens of the alchemists or the still more ancient wells of the sorcerers. An atmosphere of mystery hung over the place, an unearthly influence seemed to be radiated from the alembic. . .as if drawn down from interstellar space and spread over the countryside to inspire wonder and awe in the minds of the nearby farms and villagers. . .” . . .Marconi, with Carl F. Braun of Germany, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1909 for their “separate but parallel development of the wireless telegraph.” Never for the rest of his life would Tesla give up on his concepts of power transmission and broadcasting. It was not a dream, he declared, “but a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive—blind, fainthearted, doubting world.” Excerpt from Marc Seifer’s Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla—Biography of a Genius (Birch Lane Press, 1996, pp. 291-292) In the last week of July [1903], just days before men came to cart away part of his equipment, the inventor fashioned a way to couple his behemoth and fire it up. As pressures reached their maximum, with the cupola fully charged, a dull thunder rumbled from the site, alerting the hamlet that something was about to happen. Strange Light At Tesla’s Tower From the top of Mr. Tesla’s lattice work tower on the north shore of Long Island, there was a vivid display of light several nights last week. This phenomena [sic] provoked the curiosity of the few people who live nearby, but the proprietor of the Wardencliffe [sic] plant declined to explain the spectacle when inquiries were addressed to him. (New York Herald Tribune, July 19, 1903) Tesla’s mushroom-shaped citadel spewed forth a pyrotechnic eruption that could be gleaned not only by those who lived nearby but also by the populace inhabiting the shores of Connecticut, across Long Island Sound. But by the end of July the tower fell silent, never to raise its radio cry again. n terms of science mysteries, one of the most intriguing sites for over a hundred years now is that of Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Laboratory, some seventy miles outside of New York City. The brick structure of the lab itself, designed by architect Stanford White, sits on sixteen acres near Long Island Sound in East Shoreham, Long Island. While the fate of Wardenclyffe—the laboratory where radio broadcasting would have started twenty years before it actually reached commercial status in the United States and where wireless electricity might have started a century ago—hangs in the balance, Tesla’s name is carried forward and he has become a sort of cultural icon. Rock star David Bowie played Tesla in the 2006 film “The Prestige” (starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine). The Tesla Motor Company (www.teslamotors.com) is manufacturing beautiful, high-end electric cars to such buyers as movie star George I 12 Clooney, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, television host David Letterman, and a long list of celebrities. Company investors include Google founders Larry Page and Sergie Brinn, after initial investment by Paypal cofounder Elon Musk, who now runs the company. Tesla’s name is memorialized in books, software programs, a rock band, an entire Brooklyn Academy of Music opera by Laurie Anderson, a superconducting linear accelerator in Germany, and inventions we use every day all over the world, involving AC electricity, radio, radar, fluorescent lighting and motors. But Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Laboratory, with its 187foot tall tower, is perhaps the most haunting and compelling image of a dream that might have been. Nikola Tesla referred to his world broadcast center as being capable of “changing the planet into a human brain,” much the same way that technology writers such as Nicholas INFINITE ENERGY • ISSUE 89 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 Carr (The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, which was to draw attention in communities across the W.W. Norton, 2008) talk about internet technology turning country recognizing sites worthy of preservation,” Jane into the worldwide computer, the difference being that Carr Alcorn relates. “We had over 150 people come out, from the is writing in 2008 and Tesla school superintendent, to famicame up with this in 1900. lies, and even a dog named Tesla was finally recognized as Tesla. The local government of being the inventor of radio by Shoreham Village, the civic the U.S. Supreme Court in association, the town council1943, a few months after his woman and supervisor, a repredeath. But he had the technolosentative from the county execgy ready to broadcast at utive office and a county legisWardenclyffe. “Marconi was lator, and our New York state transmitting Morse code, not senator, all pledged support for continuous wave frequency,” the project.” Indeed, driving notes Marc Seifer. In Wizard, into the village, one is greeted Seifer detailed the innovations by signs declaring, “Welcome to and patents of Tesla that related Shoreham!” with an image of to broadcasting, among them the Tesla tower on the signs. In his work with John Hayes September, Alcorn nominated Hammond which led to a Tesla for inclusion in the Long patent on a virtually unlimited Island Technology Hall of Wardenclyffe Tower and Laboratory number of wireless channels (the same Fame; Tesla will be inducted into the Hall technology as cell phones), and the 1904 of Fame in March 2010. work of Dr. Arthur Korn, a Munich electri“Marc Alessi, who has represented our cal engineer who successfully transmitted community in the Assembly since 2005, wire photos. Korn is often credited with grew up on Long Island and lives here being the inventor of the television tube, with his wife and two children, and has and his apparatus, wrote Seifer, utilized been very enthusiastic about the idea of a “Tesla currents.” historic and science museum here.” “He should have built the broadcast Alcorn continued. “In October 2009 he center at Niagara Falls and jumped the went to Belgrade, where the Tesla museum energy to England. He had calculated is located and Tesla is a national hero. nodal points all over the world. I don’t There he met with the museum administhink Wardenclyffe would have successtrators, who offered a loan of Tesla materifully broadcast electric power, that he al when the museum opens.” could have lit up homes from it, but I do “Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe laboratory think he would have succeeded with a is such a fantastic historic landmark that it global communication system. Tesla would be shameful not to preserve it,” would have started radio at Wardenclyffe declares New York State Assemblyman about 1904,” Seifer explains, speculating Marc Alessi. Nikola Tesla, 1920 that perhaps a smaller effort, broadcasting “I would definitely give my Tesla first from Long Island to Connecticut, might have been a archives to a Tesla Museum located at Wardenclyffe,” more realistic start and not resulted in the disastrous ending declares Marc Seifer. His book Wizard took fifteen years to with J.P. Morgan. research and write, during which time he traveled to Tesla’s “Tesla never punted,” sighs Marc Seifer. “He wanted all or town of birth in Smiljan, Croatia, to the Tesla Museum in nothing; that’s what bugs me about Tesla. . .” Serbia, to numerous sites in the U.S. where Tesla archives are In May of this year, New York Times science writer William located, as well as to Niagara Falls (site of two Tesla statues), Broad’s article (“A Battle to Preserve a Visionary’s Bold Failure,” where Tesla and Westinghouse harnessed the power of the www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/science/05tesla.html) covered falls to electrify the entire northeast, to Colorado Springs the background of Wardenclyffe and the fact that Agfa, the and to the site of Wardenclyffe where Tesla’s most important photo company who owns the site, has now completed a story takes place. Seifer’s biography of Tesla added to the mandated Superfund site cleanup and was putting the propinformation given in previous works, such as John J. erty up for sale. The article portrays people involved with a O’Neill’s Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla (1944) and decade long effort to have the Wardenclyffe site designated Margaret Cheney’s Tesla: Man Out of Time (1981, reference as a historical landmark and have a museum and science above), detailing more of the friendship and work collaboracenter built on the property. tion between Tesla and Stanford White. “The fact that One of the individual’s quoted in the Times piece was Jane Wardenclyffe is a Stanford White building alone makes it a Alcorn, president of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe historic landmark,” Seifer says. “It’s hard to believe that New effort. She provided an update of events that have transpired York, one of the richest states in the country, can’t find the since May. money to turn Wardenclyffe into a museum.” Seifer’s long “Two weeks after the article ran, we had a National Trust relationships with the American-residing community of for Historic Preservation event declaring ‘This Place Matters,’ Yugoslavians who have long promoted interest in Tesla JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 • ISSUE 89 • INFINITE ENERGY 13 include friendships with surviving Tesla nephew William Wardenclyffe site to be purchased from Agfa. Alessi reports Terbo, Alexander Marincic, former head of the Tesla Museum that the Department of Environmental Conservation has in Serbia, and Dr. Ljubo Vujovic, president of the Tesla from six months to a year to give a final review on the cleanMemorial Society of New York, whose organization fought to up of the land before it can officially be sold, and a county get a Tesla plaque on the site of the Hotel New Yorker on appraisal will likely wait on that review. He believes that 34th Street in Manhattan, where Tesla lived the final years of funds can be raised to purchase the land. his life (www.teslamemorialsociety.org). “There is a tremendous interest in a local and internaAnother Tesla museum supporter is Bill Wysock, whose tional community of people who understand the enormous company Tesla Technology Research significance of Nikola Tesla’s contribution (www.ttr.com) manufactures giant, extraorto technology and innovation,” Alessi says. dinary Tesla coils that have appeared in “While Tesla was a naturalized American museums, theme parks such as Walt Disney citizen, his birth place was in Serbia, where park exhibits, MCA Universal’s Studio Tour, he is an enormous hero. His face is on the movies, television shows, and media outlets paper currency there. While I traveled worldwide. He has offered the donation of there, the idea of the Wardenclyffe site a giant Tesla coil for the Tesla Science being lost is horrifying, as it is to people all Center at Wardenclyffe. over the world, and the people who want to Shortly after the Times article ran in May, contribute come from all over the world. I Seifer also swung into action, writing to have discussed the creation of a sister museGovernor David Paterson of New York and um on Long Island that would be a sister meeting with Petar Ljubicic, Council museum to the Tesla museum in Belgrade. General of the Croatian government, who It would be a center for education and techsaid his government would be happy to nology as well as an important historic contribute to the creation of a Tesla muselandmark.” The acquisition of the um at the Wardenclyffe site. “Tesla was Wardenclyffe site is the primary focus first. raised in Croatia and he was a great unifyAlcorn and her board have been able to ing character, also proud of his Serbian herhave a number of events and programs near itage. It was this kind of background that the site, such as lectures by biographer Marc seeded his ideas for a world communication Seifer, an appearance by Tesla’s nephew center through technology,” says Seifer. William Terbo, and filming of part of a lecLjubicic attended a lecture Seifer gave at the A vision of the design of Wardenclyffe. ture series they held by Robert Uth, who did Open Center in New York City a PBS documentary titled “Tesla: about Tesla and Wardenclyffe. Master of Lightning.” Dr. James Meanwhile, the work of Jane Corum and Kenneth Corum, Alcorn and her board to create physicists who have done years the Tesla Science Center at of research and publishing on Wardenclyffe—combining with Tesla technology, have presented partners at other Tesla groups there. Alcorn has discussed plans such as Gary Peterson in to have events at the Tesla Colorado’s 21st Century Books (a Museum at Wardenclyffe that publishing and licensing arm of will be broadcast on the internet historical Tesla material) and the in keeping with the original Tesla Memorial Society of New world broadcasting center plans York—have received offers of Tesla wanted. support from all levels of governIn early 2010, a new wave of ment, from the local civic organactivity towards acquisition will ization to the federal level. commence. After more than a “At the current time, the state decade of working towards acquihistorical status must be applied sition of the site, the non-profit The lab building is all that remains at Wardenclyffe. for by the owner, which is Agfa,” Tesla Science Center at This photo was taken from atop the tower in 1914 says Jane Alcorn. Other Long Wardenclyffe group intends to (before the tower was razed in 1917). Island science institutes, such as continue until the dream Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook becomes a reality. Tax deductible donations are being sought University as well as other science museums in New York, are to assist the group in purchasing the Wardenclyffe site and participating in discussions about the future of the site. to later construct a museum and science center. Visit their Assemblyman Marc Alessi arranged a meeting on website (www.teslasciencecenter.org) for more information December 11, 2009, in which he drew together representaor to donate; donations can also be sent via mail to: tives of Jane Alcorn’s Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe members of the Brookhaven town government, and private P.O. Box 552 individuals with whom Alessi had discussed the possibility Shoreham, NY 11786 of their making a six month to a year bridge loan to match the $850,000 from New York State in order for the 14 INFINITE ENERGY • ISSUE 89 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010